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Sunday, January 31, 2016

As I am waiting to watch the Pro-bowl, I thought I'd play along with Jenn's Coolest Card series..

There were three weeks, all had to be snow themed + something else that was announced each week..

Week 1 - Stencils and Paper Smooches.This week you had to make a card that was snow themed AND used stencils.

I used Lawn Fawn Winter Fox stamps and dies. The snow was made using Lawn Fawn stitched hillside borders, I added a bit of stickles to the curve to make it more snow like.

I had a freebie snowflake stencil that I have never used..which turned out to be perfect for here.

I added a Simon Says Stamp sentiment as the finishing touch.

Week 2 - Watercolours and My Favorite Things. This week make a card that is snow themed AND used watercolours.

I decided to go with a resist here, I stamped my Sizzix snowflakes using clear versamark ink and white embossing powder. I heat embossed it and then watercoloured over the top. I love the splodges you get. I used a MFT stitched die to die cut my watercolour piece out and then stamped a Simon Says Stamp sentiment onto a darker blue panel. I added a blue doily for a bit of texture.

I love this card, it feels like being out in the snow!

Week 3 - Valentine Colours and Lawn Fawn. This week make a card that is snow themed AND uses Valentine colours.

This is the main photo today.

I used one of my fave Lawn Fawn sets here - Yeti, Set, Go. I thought a pink Yeti made sense..after all there must be a Ms / Mrs Yeti right? Once again I utilised my Lawn Fawn stitched hillside border die and keeping with the colour scheme I stamped pink snowflakes..

Finished off with a sentiment sticker by Crate Paper.

What a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

I'm also pretty excited that Kathy Rac over at The Daily Marker is starting her latest 30 Day Colouring Challenge tomorrow - whoop whoop!

Thursday, January 21, 2016

It's been a busy week so far..I am looking forward to the weekend and some QT at my desk..

Our friends have a Horse mad Daughter, so this year I wanted to make her a card that fits her likes, but I discovered I do not have a single Horse stamp - physical or digital.

Then I remembered the awesome Unicorn stamp (by Bugaboo) that JT gave me as part of the 2015 $20 challenge..

Almost a Horse right?

I coloured the image with Promarkers and the background paper is ANCIENT..I've had it approx 5 years..

To make the card more Horse related..I made a detachable rosette that she can wear.

Super simple to make, cut 2 felt circles, cut 2 pennants, attach the pennants to the inside of one of the circles, use fabric glue to stick together. Add sentiment circle and a safety pin at the back, affix to the card using foam tape - voila! Pennant.

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

One of the things that I have learnt over the last 2 years is that my stamps can be 'stretched'..meaning that they can be used in many different ways and not just for the original intended use.

So for example, this great scribble flowers set by Simon Says Stamp, doesn't always have to look like flowers.

In today's card, I've used the circles as a random jumble.

I like it, but I am disappointed that I misjudged the space for the sentiment...it's still going to get used though.

The sentiment stamps are some of my default go to stamps - they are by CAS-ual Fridays.

Every now and again I go through all my stamps and add a little note to their plastic sleeve with the ways I might be able to use them, so if I am stuck for inspiration, I just check my stamps and voila! ideas..

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

One of the things I really wanted to do during the Black Friday sales was to buy more of the layering Tim Holtz stencils..

I had about 6 of them already and wanted to add a further 6, but I could only find 4 of the ones I wanted.

I thought it would be fun to try out the stencils using Distress Stains.

The main photo shows the backgrounds I made using the stencils - From left to right clockwise - Scribbles, Grid, Scribbles, Tracks, Lace and Tracks.

Today I am going to show you two cards that I made using two of the backgrounds, I'll show more when I finish making cards..I haven't had much desk time recently.

The card above is the Thank You card I made for JT to say 'thanks' for all the lovely Christmas presents, for getting me my wonderful job and for generally being a superb person and friend.

The hearts were punched from a Scribbles background that is not in the main photo. I had originally planned to stack the two die-cut Lawn Fawn scripty thanks, but then I thought what if I created a shadow...

Here's a close-up -

I'm super pleased with how well the shadow worked!

Funnily it arrived in the post last night when I was at JT's house LOL!

The card below uses a tracks background and it was a birthday card for our cat sitter Brad - we only started using Brad in December, he's amazing the cats love him, as do we..he's a bit older than your average cat sitter, but I think that makes him perfect for the job.

I wanted to include a cat on his card, as he loves cats, so I added a Mama Elephant cat -

I actually think these the tracks backgounds look like mini trees.

I really love working with stencils..I am going to keep practising with the stains, I'll be trying distress paint next, could be interesting.

Monday, January 11, 2016

I thought I would share some of the photos from our fab, fun trip to Lisbon in December.

It was a total blast and really cool to meet everyone's partners.

We did fun things - like find a bar that served 2 beers for 75cents, race through Lisbon in Tuk Tuks, go to the Aquarium en masse when severely hungover, drink the best 2euro wine ever in a wine shop, wander through Lisbon admiring the architecture, discover that Lisboans are obsessed with Sardines and have a fondness for Pork, shop a lot, dress up for a Michelin starred dinner, dance in awful clubs, drink a lot several times..

It was fun, we did it together and it makes me love my work colleagues a little bit more..

Saturday, January 9, 2016

Yes, sometimes I do forget I'm a crafter, especially when I see shiny, pretty paper goods and stationery on display in shops..

I like to have a calendar hanging on my pinboard above my craft / work desk and last year I had a cute one from Michaels that was a dollar.

It came with the handy clipboard that you can see in my main photo.

I've seen lots of really lovely small hanging calendars and have been tempted to buy one..then when I was taking down my 2015 one, I thought - hold on, why don't I make one for myself..idiot!

So I trawled around for a calendar style I liked (very fussy about this) and came across a fellow WOYWWer Scrappy Sticky Inky Mess - she has a whole host of fabulous free printables on her blog and I found one that had a blank space for you to decorate.

I printed it out and cut it down to fit the clipboard (recycling points) and then I added a swipe of distress stain to the top of each month, found appropriate stamps and voila 15 mins later I had a calendar...

Nice to be reminded of the fact that I have an entire craft room at my disposal..

Here are photos of all of the months..

I used all different stamps for my interpretation of the months..Sept is cake because it's my birth month :) I did notice that I need one more distress stain colour :) because I had to reuse a colour...excuses for spendy spendy...

Friday, January 8, 2016

Before I leave for London tonight, I wanted to play along with the latest Simon Says Monday AND Wednesday Challenges...

They are both 'Something New' and the Monday DT used Tim Holtz products..so I did that too.

I went with two New themes - Happy New Year and new stash :)

I recently bought the Tim Holtz and Sizzix Alphanumeric dies, but haven't had a chance to use them.

I used them for this card to die cut the words Happy New Year out of Tim Holtz watercolour paper, that I coloured using Worn Lipstick distress ink, blended using different strengths of ink to create the colour variation.

I stacked them onto a die cut piece of the watercolour paper and then used a new Tim Holtz grid stencil with Ferro Metallic Paste.

I love the end result, a little bit funky, like the friend it is going to :)

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Today is a sad day, as Lemon goes home after spending 10 days with us.

As usual we have had a lot of fun, including a hilarious New Year's Eve spent in Atlantic City...we stayed up all night and got the 6.30am bus home!!

Here is a photo of us on Saturday at brunch - we went to our fave boozy brunch place and it was a lot of fun.

We miss Lemon ALOT and feel very privileged that she comes and spends a large chunk of her holiday time with us.

I made the card today for her - it went in the post over the weened, so it would be there for her when she got home.

The stamp is by Unity Stamp Co and I used my new Spectrum Noir sparkle markers (similar to wink of stella) for the sparkly parts of the image - not sure if I am loving them, but they were a free gift, so nothing lost by trying them :)

Hello!

Welcome to the Ham'n'Mule Designs blog.

I set-up this blog to share tips, my projects, some chit chat and my family adventures!

Now for the fine print..

This is a personal blog and the majority of the things you see here are my own creations. I sometimes CASE other people's work and I am happy for you to the same with mine. But I would appreciate it if you'd give me a shout out and a link back to this blog if you do, just as I do with when I CASE. Please do not present anything you find here as your own or submit my work for competitions or for publication.